Rick Orlov's Tipoff: L.A. Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa heading to China

As he prepares to leave office on June 30, Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa seems intent on making sure every page of his passport has some foreign destination stamped on it.

Next Sunday, he is heading a trade and commerce delegation to China for a quick three-day visit to promote Los Angeles International Airport, the Port of Los Angeles and tourism to the city. It is his third trip to Asia in his eight years as mayor.

Part of the trip includes opening a second tourism office in Shanghai to work with the one that has been open in Beijing. Last year, China accounted for 460,000 tourists to Los Angeles and the country generated $159 billion worth of trade for the city.

Last week, the mayor was in Dubai with Huffington Post founder Arianna Huffington where he delivered a commencement address at the American University. It was another quick trip, with him gone only over the weekend and returning on Tuesday.

The Dubai trip was not on his official schedule as the mayor has taken to not disclosing such trips that do not directly involve the city. It came to light only when Huffington posted a picture of the two of them on her Facebook page.

While he's gone, his staff will be working on transition issues for whoever is elected to succeed him in Tuesday's election.

"The mayor is committed to a seamless transition and has instructed staff to make themselves available to the next mayor's staff," spokeswoman Vicki Curry said.

When he took over for former Mayor James Hahn, Villaraigosa and his new staff were presented with a packet of transition books from every deputy mayor, said Tim McOsker, who was Hahn's chief of staff.

The books included a list of projects that were underway, including comments on the status and priority.

McOsker said he held weekly meetings with Villaraigosa's staff in the weeks leading up to the inauguration to assist in the change.

And following through on Villaraigosa's pledge to "work right up to 11:59:59," Curry said the staff "will remain focused on the work at hand in the next six weeks."

Curry said that includes passage of the mayor's proposed $7.7 billion budget, although implementation of its spending plan will be up to the next mayor and City Council.

As has become one of the more troublesome aspects of recent city elections, there has been increasing public attention paid to campaigns run by independent expenditure committees.

The committees are supposed to be independent of the campaigns, meaning the candidate has no say or responsibility for what the committees say in their mailings and advertising.

While there has been quite a bit of attention paid to the role of the committees in the mayor's race, there has been little or no attention paid to the other down-ticket races.

Take the election for city attorney as an example.

Incumbent Carmen Trutanich has seen more than $74,000 spent on his behalf, including more than $66,000 by a committee called LA Residents for Accountability to Support Carmen Trutanich, funded by AEG Inc.

No, not that AEG. Not the Anschutz Entertainment Group that built Staples Center and LA Live and tangled with Trutanich when he was first elected over who would pay the city's costs for the Michael Jackson memorial, as well as over the company's plans for a downtown sign district.

"It isn't us," spokesman Michael Roth said.

It turns out the AEG behind the committee is Advanced Environmental Group, a Rancho Dominguez based firm, that is involved with cleaning up industrial and hazardous wastes.

The independent expenditure committee has sent out a number of mailings in support of Trutanich and critical of his opponent, former Assemblyman Mike Feuer.